Vocabulary (Essential Terms)

Principles of Learning: Accountable Talk (Learning Research and Development Center (c) 2004 University of Pittsburgh)

Talking with others about ideas and work is fundamental to learning. But not all talk sustains learning. For classroom talk to promote learning it must be accountable--to learning community, to accurate and appropriate knowledge, and to rigorous thinking. Accountable Talk seriously responds to and further develops what others in the group have said. It puts forth and demands knowledge that is accurate and relevant to the issue under discussion. Accountable Talk uses evidence appropriate to the discipline (e.g., proofs in mathematics, data from investigations in science, textual details in literature, documentary sources in history) and follows established norms of good reasoning. Teachers should intentionally create the norms and skills of Accountable Talks in their classrooms.

Accountability to the Learning Community

Active participation in classroom talk

Listen attentively

Elaborate and build on each other's ideas

Work to clarify or expand a proposition

Accountability to Knowledge

Specific and accurate knowledge

Appropriate evidence for claims and arguments

Commitment to getting it right

Accountability to Rigorous Thinking

Synthesize several sources of information

Construct explanations and test understanding of concepts

Formulate conjectures and hypotheses

Employ generally accepted standards of reasoning

Challenge the quality of evidence and reasoning

Each link below will show "essential terms" for each type of CTEcourse. These terms are expected vocabulary for students to be using to be "knowledgable" in the subject are.